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Book Review

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Tales of the Times - A Bottomless Well

By George Anastasia September 23, 1971
Woodbury Daily Times

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There are a lot of problems in the world today. You pick up the newspaper or turn on the TV and things keep hitting you right in the face. Money's tight, prices are high and people everywhere are shooting at one another. It's depressing as hell. But every once in a while, something happens and things jump back into perspective. Maybe you win some money, maybe you find some money or maybe Jean Shepherd comes out with a new book. Jean Shepherd is the Damon Runyon of middle America. He's the Aesop of the 20th century. The man has a certain way with words. When you read Jean Shepherd you are 12 years old again and this is good because 12 was a very good year in most everybody's life. Jean Shepherd writes about the way you think it was when you were growing up. He doesn't try to hit you over the head with relevancy like a lot of writers today. A week ago Friday Shepherd was in Glassboro pushing his newest book, "Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories." It probably won't make the best seller list because Shepherd doesn't write the kind of stuff that goes over big in literary circles. I mean people don't sit around discussing the social significance of a Jean Shepherd piece. What people do think is that Jean Shepherd is a very funny man. That's why he's become a radio and TV personality and something of a modern folk hero. There is a Jean Shepherd cult in this country. There are people who identify with his characters, listen to his radio show and swear by his 180-degree reciprocal of reality principle. A lot of the Jean Shepherd cult people were at the Paperback Nook last week talking to their hero. You could tell who these people were right away. They were the ones who called him "Shep." Shep was at the Nook last Friday wearing tinted sun glasses, a multicolored vest over a bright orange shirt, dungarees and moccasins. He looked like a vacationing truck driver, which is part of the guys appeal. Naturally the talk got around to the reciprocal of reality principle a:id for the uninitiated in the crowd, Jean Shepherd restated his law. Shepherd's Law is the Catch-22 of everyday life. It goes like this: everything is 180 degrees from "the way you think it is. In other words, what you see ain't what you get. Shepherd says people have a cockeyed view of life, and with the way things are in this country today maybe there's something to be said for the theory. But don't expect Jean Shepherd to say it. Shepherd doesn't write about the way things are. He writes about the way things would be if everybody was a comic strip character. He writes about simple things in a funny way. And in a complex and tragic world, simple and funny things are becoming more and more difficult to find. In this respect Jean Shepherd is a natural resource. "People read my stuff and they feel they have experienced it," he said. "They feel they could have written the same thing. That's like saying they saw the same apple Picasso saw." Shepherd operates the same way. His first book, "In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash," is a contemporary classic. "Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories," another collection of his short stories, looks like more of the same. Jean Shepherd is a comic who has discovered a bottomless well of material. Jean Shepherd writes about people.

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September 23, 1971
Woodbury Daily Times

"Can you imagine 4,000 years passing, and you're not even a memory?
Think about it, friends. It's not just a possibility. It is a certainty." - Jean Shepherd - 1975